Monday, May 11, 2015

I was 8 when I first saw Nick Carter on MTV (music video of "Quit Playing Games With My Heart"). I think he was 16 at that time. I instantly became a fan of him and the Backstreet Boys. He's probably also one of my very first crushes ever.

Since then, I promised myself that there would come a time that I'd get to see him in person too.

I did get to finally see him in person back in 2010 when I went to the Backstreet Boys "This Is Us" concert at SMART-Araneta Coliseum and in 2012 for the "NKOTBBSB" concert at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.

I was happy that at last I did get to see him perform live on stage, but I somehow wanted more. I wanted to meet him in person and tell him how big a fan I am of him ever since for 2 decades now.

But I'm gay. I just wasn't sure how open he was with having gay fans like me, or the rest of the boys (Brian Littrell, AJ McClean, Howie Dorough and Kevin Richardson) for that matter. But, hey....you just have one shot in life.

Come what may.

And lo and behold, come May 5, 2015, at the MOA Arena, around 6PM. This happened....

Dreams do come true!!!

Thank you, Lord!!! Finally!!! After 20 years...20 long years!!!

And not only that....

Nick Carter hugged me.

NICK. CARTER. HUGGED. ME.

I didn't approach him and offered to hug him first. He was the one who made the first move to hug me.

Me. A gay fan. Getting a hug from Nick Carter.

It was so more than enough! I swear. I so swear. Surreal!

Some of you might not understand why I feel this way about this experience, but believe me...that night is probably the happiest night of my life ever. EVER.

This is also a very big deal to me because not all artists are LGBT friendly. They might seem and express to be LGBT friendly when they're on TV or something but most of the time they're very different in person. And you can't hide such level of discomfort or resentment to an LGBT fan. I'm so thankful that with Nick Carter it was different.

Thank you, Nick Carter. Thank you so much. Thank you for touching my life and making me believe again that life is indeed very beautiful.